Comparing all albums separately by their energy levels.

This histogram shows that there is a quite a big difference in energy between all the albums. Cheek To Cheek scores quite a bit lower than Chromatica for example, which is logical because the it is a jazz record consisting of more slower, chiller songs. Chromatica, on the contrary, has only upbeat songs and scores very high on the energy ranking. This rule seems to apply for all her pop albums. Artpop, The Fame, and Born This Way score much higher than Cheek To Cheek (jazz) and A Star Is Born. Joanne is kind of a mix, because it has both low and higher energy scores. The album consists of both upbeat and slower songs, as it is a mix of pop, folk/country and rock elements.

Scatterplot containing the energy and valence of each album

The Fame

This plot is relatively cohesive and does not show a lot of extreme outliers. The most notable one is Brown Eyes, which has an energy level of 0.508 and is significantly smaller than the other songs. On the other side, Disco Heaven has the highest energy level of 0.946.

Born This Way

This plot is already very different than the previous one as the line is pretty bent and curvy. The biggest outlier in energy is Bloody Mary. Its energy level is 0.637. The highest energy level is 0.970 from the song ScheiBe.

Artpop

This plot shows a bit of a curve. The biggest outlier is clearly Dope. Its energy level is 0.429. This is the lowest one until now, which makes sense as this song is a ballad and has is much slower and lower in valence and danceability than the other songs on this rather experimental album. On the other end, Mary Jane Holland has 0.967, which is the highest energy level of all songs on this album.

Cheek To Cheek

The Cheek To Cheek plot shows a pretty straight line starting from a lower danceability level to a higher one. This jazz album is very different from the rest as the genre is already a big notifier of how the valence and danceability level could possibly impact its energy levels. The lowest energy score is 0.129 for Ev’ry Time We Say Goodbye, which is much lower than what was previously noted. This song is very slow and low in energy. Contrary to that song is It Don’t Mean A Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing). Its energy level is 0.778, which is the highest here.

Joanne

This plot for the Joanne album shows a relatively straight line with a curve in the beginning. The biggest outlier in energy is the Angel Down - Work Tape. Its energy level is 0.237. This song is a different version of the song Angel Down which is on the same album. The energy is much lower as it is slower than most songs on the album. The highest energy level in this plot is 0.889 for the song A-YO.

A Star Is Born (Soundtrack)

The line of this plot for the A Star Is Born (Soundtrack) album is pretty bent. The biggest energy outlier is Is That Alright?, which has an energy level of 0.279. This is also a slower song. The highest song, on the contrary, is Black Eyes (by Bradley Cooper, in this case) which energy level is 0.937.

Chromatica

The last plot for Chromatica shows a curvy line. The biggest outlier is clearly Chromatica II, which has an energy level of 0.184. This is an instrumentaland orchestral track of 42 seconds and transitions seamlessly into 911, which has an energy level of 0.789. This is the song that has the highest energy level of the album. It is quite interesting how two tracks, that are usually seen as one, can be so different in their energy levels.

Studying and comparing all songs with the lowest energy level with a chordogram

Brown Eyes (energy: 0.508)

This chordogram shows Lady Gaga’s song Brown Eyes. There are a lot of changes in the song, but the most notable one is around 165 seconds. At this point in the song, Gaga turns up the volume of her voice for the bridge. The present chords are Cmin, Amin and Cmaj. Cmaj and Amin are relative keys and Cmaj and Cmin are parallel keys. They are all connected in this way, up til the end when there is a fadeout in the song around 235 seconds.

Bloody Mary (energy: 0.637)

Bloody Mary’s chordogram is very different than the previous one as the colors are much lighter. The clearest trend is F#min that keeps on going throughout the song, except for during the intro and outro. There are not a lot of notable changes besides this one.

Dope (energy: 0.429)

This chordogram of Dope shows a pretty clear structure. There is a 20-second intro, after which a verse starts. Around 45 seconds into the song, the pre-chorus starts, in which Bbmin is the most notable chord, that was also clearly present in the verse. This structure continues for the rest of the song.

Ev’ry Time We Say Goodbye (energy: 0.129)

Ev’ry Time We Say Goodbye also shows a clearly structures song. The most notable chords are Eb-maj, Fmin for a short part of the song, Emaj and C#min. These chords all lie close to each other.

Angel Down - Work Tape (energy: 0.237)

Angel Down - Work Tape does not show a very diverse chordogram. Dmin is quite present in the first 40 seconds and D#min stays very present throughout the whole song. For the rest, the chords are very light which means they are not very present.

Is That Alright? (energy: 0.279)

Is That Alright? shows a few present chords such as Ab-maj for a short part of the song and Amaj that is quite strong throughout the whole song. There are chords like Amin and Fmaj that show a smaller present, but are still there.

Chromatica II (energy: 0.184)

Chromatica II has three clear parts. The first part is the intro, the second part shows no strong presence of chords and the third part shows a strong presence of Fmin, Ebmaj, Dmin and C#min. This track is instrumental and orchestral so it is different from all of the other songs.

Using cepstrograms to dive into the most streamed song of each album.

This cepstrogram shows Lady Gaga’s song Brown Eyes from the album The Fame.

Lady Gaga: from her controversial *The Fame to her newest release Chromatica

Lady Gaga’s first album, The Fame, was released in August 2008 and immediately shot her to stardom. From that moment Gaga was on of the biggest artists in the world. Lady Gaga is one of the biggest pop artists in the world and is known for her musical range. After her debut album, she has released a variety of musical projects, ranging from mainstream pop to folk and jazz. I am very much

This aim of this website is to display my research on Lady Gaga’s full discography. The albums I will compare are The Fame, Born This Way, Artpop, Cheek To Cheek (with Tony Bennett), Joanne, A Star Is Born Soundtrack and Chromatica. To study the musical differences, I will first rank the albums by commercial success by looking at the Spotify streams each album has. I will then look at the musical differences of each album and conclude if there is a relationship between the the commercial success and musical elements, such as energy and valence.

Ranking all of Gaga’s albums by the amount of Spotify streams

Before studying the musical elements of Lady Gaga’s music to compare it to the commercial success, I have to rank all albums based on their success. I first calculated the total amount of streams of each album on Spotify on February 28, 2021. Then I divided this by the number of songs on the album to compare all songs equally. My ranking will therefore be based on the average streams per song on each album.

  1. A Star Is Born Soundtrack (2018)
  1. The Fame (2008)
  1. Chromatica (2020):
  1. Joanne (2016)
  1. Born This Way (2011)
  1. Artpop (2013)
  1. Cheek To Cheek (2014)

The only issue with this method of calculation is that all albums were released at different points in time, so some albums have naturally had more time to be streamed. I have not found a reliable source that provided me with data that can be fully equally compared.

Is there a clear and distinctive relationship between music and commerce in Gaga’s music?

I have not been able to draw a conclusion as there are more musical elements I want to compare.